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Chapter 22: Accept Yourself as You Are

I’m feeling much better since you suggested I do a lot of physical activity.

You have much energy and you had not been using it creatively. Whenever energy is not used creatively it becomes destructive, stagnant, and by and by a prison of solid rock is created around you.

There are two types of people - those with high energy and those with low energy. If the high energy people don’t use their energy there will be problems: aggression, anger - anger for no reason at all, and against any and everybody - violence, hatred, jealousy.

Low energy people have a different type of problem - sadness, lethargy, a disinterest in life, and a dragging and dull attitude. So the problems of a low energy person need to be tackled in a different way. He needs more relaxation and methods which don’t use energy but rather allow him to relax into the non-tense so that energy is not dissipated in any way. Buddhist methods, Vipassana, are for low energy people. For a high energy person such methods will be a problem. He would not know what to do - so much energy and nothing to do, so the energy becomes suppressed. Dynamic methods and catharsis are for high energy people.

The East is basically low energy: poverty, malnutrition, and centuries and centuries of passivity. The West is high energy. You can divide it into male and female, yin and yang. Male means a high energy person, and female means a low energy person - it has nothing to do with man and woman.

So you are a high energy person, remember that always. Whenever you feel any problem arising, that is simply an indication that you need more work, more creativity. It doesn’t matter what you do, but do something physical - anything physical is beautiful. If you don’t, then the mind uses the energy round and round in circles.

So swim or dance - do something with the body. Body movements are going to help you tremendously. It has been good, and you look perfectly well. But remember, don’t forget!

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Many of the problems I had, or imagined I had, are dropping.

They do drop. One just needs to be a little patient. Everything drops of its own accord, because in the first place it has come of its own accord.

This should be a continual remembrance: that everything arises on its own and subsides on its own. You are just a witness sitting on the bank, and the river flows by. Sometimes it is in flood - when it is raining; sometimes it passes slowly - when it is summer. You are just a watcher, it is none of your concern.